Christmas Time
by Spiral Loki
Summary: Naruto in the holiday spirit, Sasuke opposing it because he's difficult like that. The disasters that ensue. Naruto/Sasuke implications. Merry Christmas.


A/N: Reloaded because i fucked up with FF deletion. Inspired by B-rate Christmas Specials. My first fanfiction, I hope you enjoy it and of course, Merry Christmas.

Summary: Naruto in the holiday spirit, Sasuke opposing it because he's difficult like that, and the disasters that ensue. Naruto/Sasuke implications.

Disclaimer: All character belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

**Christmas Time**

The telltale signs of Christmas oncoming have always been obvious to Sasuke. Excluding the emergence of carollers, Christmas trees, blaring lights, repeated stories of Jesus, candy canes, the heavily raised prices in department stores or a simple calendar check; Christmas is predominantly acknowledged with a shift in Uzumaki Naruto's mood, from his usual enthused to overly enthused, and the general proceeding of wasting money on candles, eggnog, decorations, whistling carols down the street and keeping mistletoe in his pocket for: 'you know, just in case', queue sleezy wink.

But the holiday spirit never really starts for Sasuke until Naruto runs through the corridors and smacks his locker shut. For dramatic effect, of course.

"Christmas, you and me, snowboarding in Canada?"

"No," Sasuke replies and walks off.

The tradition, as usual, continues for the next three weeks; his text inbox fills with capslocked messages, including: LET'S TAKE A ROAD TRIP and LET'S STEAL THE TOWN SNOWPLOW and finally LET'S STE AL THE TOWN'S SNOWPLOW _AND_ YOUR MUM'S TEA SET. One time, Naruto insists quite adamantly that they should swim in Konoha's lake on Christmas morning, in which Sasuke counters by shoving his hand for five minutes in the cold, minus temperature snow. There is a fair bit of shrieking before Sakura comes outside and manages to convince him to stop.

Three weeks before school ends Kakashi, their homeroom teacher, decides that a good relationship building exercise for his class would be to organise Secret Santa. The class is as enthusiastic as a bunch of unenthusiastic students can get for the task, mainly because half the girls want to pick out Sasuke's name and the other half are hoping to avoid picking out Narutos'; wrapping fifty three packets of ramen on a budget of ten dollars is not exactly desirable.

Kakashi instructs everyone to put their name in a hat, gets Ino pick out the first name, tells her to put it back in because she picks out the name: 'sasuke eats turdbags' and has to redo the hat by himself because slips such as: 'Sasuke infinitely worship's Naruto' and 'Naruto is the best' turn up.

On his turn, Naruto picks out Sasuke's name.

Sasuke picks out Sakura's.

Naruto does not stop complaining for the whole walk home.

By the time they reach Naruto's apartment Sasuke is about ready to punch Naruto in the face.

"Okay _look_, _if _I swap you with Haruno, will you _shut the fuck up_?" demands Sasuke, at wit's end.

It takes two days of Naruto's general piss moaning 'I'm-ignoring-you' routine before Sasuke manages to gain Naruto's forgiveness by agreeing to join the school's charity fundraiser. They are given the job of 'raising Christmas cheer'; which in other words means: spending a weekend on a corner, singing Christmas carols with a charity container by their feet, while ringing a bell like utter wankers and annoying the general public.

"I'm not singing" Sasuke snaps, because he'd rather wave his arm off, ringing the goddamn Christmas bell, than sing in public.

"But my throat hurts," Naruto whines, and he begins to grab at the bell.

"Get off."

There is a struggle, which is an understatement. Sasuke proceeds to knee Naruto in the stomach and Naruto pulls out a generous lock of Sasuke's hair. They both revert back to their six year olds selves, rolling around on the floor, both trying to punch each other in their vitals.

The crowd that gathers is much larger than Naruto's singing and Sasuke's ringing ever did.

By the time Kakashi, the school event organiser, arrives Naruto has a black eye and Sasuke's mouth is covered with blood. Their container is filled to the top with notes and coins.

The two get nine afternoon detentions, where their requirement is to shovel snow from the school front, and another three on top of that, because Naruto dumps snow on top of Sasuke's head the first afternoon.

A trophy is presented to them at the end of the semester for raising the largest amount of charity in the school.

Xxx

Christmas gives Sasuke a cheap cumbersome walky talky that provides the perfect amount static that you see in the movies with the switching of the on button. It is black, childish, slightly embarrassing and has the message 'to Sasuke, because doesn't Christmas suck, from Naruto' written in white out on the back, more or less emulating the grammar, spelling and handwriting of a six year old. As the message reads, he has received the gift, or rather has been regifted the gift from Naruto. It's a basic trend, seeing as Naruto does not have the financial stability to buy and distribute shiny useless toys to his friends, so instead improvises by cleaning out his wardrobe and giving out items he no longer needs.

The walky talky, to begin with, is not much of an issue. It's not until two weeks later Naruto finds the missing pair, fairly late at night, and decides the best course of informing Sasuke this is by moaning rather disgracefully into its' mouthpiece at 2 o' clock in the morning.

"I aaaaaaam a ghoooooooooooooooost!"

Sasuke wakes up by jumping and hitting his head on the back wall. He stares at his pair of walkie talkie and listens to the poorly disguised ghost noise coming from it. Then he picks it up and hisses:

"I will fucking kill you."

And proceeds to slam it shut in the most violent manner he can.

The next morning he has three texts in his inbox. The first: well someone's a grumpy bitch. The second: you better not have broken that. The third: turn walky talky back on.

He of course, does not.

Xxx

Around Christmas, it is quite normal waking up to Naruto inside his house, stapling mistletoe to the entrance of his bedroom door. The basic predictable routine of him roaring his throat dry about the importance of privacy and hurling a cushion at Naruto's face ensues.

When Sasuke stumbles out of his bedroom, he finds his house is covered with bright Christmas decorations that force him to squint in order to manoeuvre around the house.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to let Naruto in the house?" he hisses to his brother when he reaches the kitchen.

Itachi settles down the newspaper, looks up at him in that quizzical 'what are you angry about now' and 'you're being overdramatic again' and finally 'why aren't you wearing any pants?' way and says:

"I didn't let Naruto in the house."

Sasuke splutters. "Then who did?"

Itachi goes back to his newspaper. "I gave him a spare key two months back."

And so, Sasuke is left with his house being taken over and destroyed by tinsel, holly, stars, epilepsy inducing lights, a rather freakish looking elf and two snow men that start carolling in a high pitched manner when movement is detected.

Xxx

Four days before Christmas while they are walking back to Sasuke's house ('because I don't want you getting snow all over my new carpet' Naruto insists), Naruto suggest, quite vocally, that this year, Sasuke should serve a Christmas Lunch, yes, The Capital Letters Are Necessary.

Sasuke gives Naruto a confounded look.

"What?"

"Christmas at yours! C'mon, it's just you and Itachi in your house all the time. And he's fine with it. It'll be fun."

This makes Sasuke clear his throat and drawl out, in a very condescending manner, the number of times Naruto has attempted to cook, the number of catastrophes that have ensued from it and a firm emphasis on the small fire that had burnt down the entire left side of Naruto's kitchen, which had resulted from some 'harmless baking'.

Naruto, stubborn as always, just pouts petulantly and points out that Sasuke's hair is ridiculous and is looking more and more like something you'd find in a popular shounen series that has been going on for far too long.

The topic ends there.

By dinner time, Naruto, who, for some reason, Itachi is quite fond of and has invited over, begins to drop a number of hints about how good Sasuke's cooking is, and how Christmas is about spreading joy, being with loved ones, warmth and rainbows, all that crap found in B grade straight to DvD Christmas specials. Sasuke ignores him for the majority of the time and proceeds to stab him in with a fork instead of answering like a normal human being, because he likes to be difficult like that. Especially when it comes to Naruto.

"Just host a Christmas Lunch," Naruto begs.

"No," Sasuke states. "It's a stupid idea."

The two look at Itachi, who is half-way putting a piece of broccoli in his mouth, for an answer.

After moments of contemplation Itachi says, quite fairly: "I don't think it's a bad idea, Sasuke" and carries on eating, but all Sasuke can hear is: 'I like random blond haired idiots better than you'. So he places his fork down, excuses himself and storms, loudly and dramatically, up the stairs forming a speech in his head about how 'blood equals thicker' and that Naruto should be banned from their house because he depletes fridge resources, which he will announce, firmly, to Itachi when he's summarized it.

Half way through his thoughts, he feels a weight on his arm that is familiar and forcing him to turn around.

"Why is this such an issue for you?" Naruto asks.

And Sasuke is suddenly pissed off.

"Because I don't want you around all the time, and I especially don't want strangers in my house on Christmas day," he hisses. And he storms up to his room and slams the door, unsure where his anger has come from.

Xxx

Hours later, his door is sheepishly creaked open and the last person Sasuke wants to see pops his head inside. Naruto is holding the back of his neck in the awkward way he does and it's well past 10 o'clock, which only adds to Sasuke's suspicion that, as of late, Naruto has been less of a guest and more of a roommate that does not pay rent.

"You don't have to host a Christmas Lunch if you don't want to."

Sasuke does not reply.

"It's just that around this time of the year, I get really lonely and all, which is, I guess, why I pull you into all these crazy antics… I just can't stand being by myself..."

Awkward pause.

And this is where Sasuke starts feeling guiltier than he wants to. He remembers that Naruto has no family and that his own are in Tokyo instead of Konoha, wrapping up a business deal, like they are most times of the year. He shifts up from his bed and sighs.

"Yeah…I know."

He's not quite ready to apologise because, frankly, he's never apologised to anyone in his life. So he says instead, "If you really want…I don't mind having some people over for lunch on Christmas Eve."

He makes sure he's not facing Naruto the whole way through his admittance, but judging by the excited shuffle behind him, he knows that there is a remarkably annoying smile growing on the blond boy's face.

"Are you serious?" Naruto says, barely containing his excitement and Sasuke growls something along the lines of 'don't make me repeat myself' and proceeds to turn around and punch Naruto on the shoulder. Affectionately…maybe.

"You're such a bastard," Naruto laughs and starts to pulls at Sasuke's arm, which has been becoming a reoccurring habit. "Come down to the living room, your brother and I wanted to light the Christmas tree."

"You decorated the tree?" Sasuke holds back the: _without me_.

Naruto nods, dashes down the stair and Sasuke follows.

By the time he enters the living room all the lights are completely off except for the tinted red streetlamps being casted in from outside. Naruto starts a count to three before he switches a flick.

"Tada!" Naruto exclaims, swinging an arm over Sasuke's shoulder.

Tada, indeed, Sasuke thinks and although never been a fan of 'the miraculous Christmas light build up' he can't help but feel his heart stop, just for a second, because he's absolutely gobsmacked by the room which is an incandescent purple that fades and merges finely with the Christmas Tree centrepiece, glowing just the right shade of gold.

Naruto stands in front of Sasuke, and, as he always does, grins like there is no tomorrow.

Xxx

Preparations for lunch are fanatical when Naruto realises that there is a limited amount of time until Christmas and a lot of things to organise. He curls into a ball of bubbling mess until Sasuke throws a pen and pad in his lap and orders him to take down the list of things that they will need.

There are about seven trips to the store, but Sasuke is surprised there wasn't more. Naruto leaves his shopping bags there twice and 'accidentally' buys potato chips instead of flour. Sasuke seriously wonders why he agrees to any of Naruto's ideas when the idea-maker himself routinely sabotages it.

The two make a list of people they want to invite, disagreeing on ninety percent of the list and settle it by deciding to send all the ones Sasuke really really really does not have the patience nor the mental capacity to endure Christmas card signed. By the both of them ("Yeah right," Sasuke says. "What are we now? A couple?" )

Half way through, they realise that neither of them can cook above the level of toast and adding boiling water, so Naruto convinces (abuses) Itachi into driving them to the nearest bookstore because walking in metre thick snow is not all that enticing. The whole way through Naruto and Itachi sing jingle bells repeatedly, loudly, and if Sasuke might add, rather badly, until Sasuke loses it, ejects the tape, and throws it out the window.

Itachi forces Sasuke to apologise.

Inside the store there is an argument on which book to purchase because Naruto wants the one that is shaped like a ramen bowl, but Sasuke points out quite validly that that cooking book is for eight year olds. A storekeeper comes over and settles the disagreement by selecting an appropriately aged book and sending Naruto off to the manga section.

"You're boyfriend's really cute," the shopkeeper says when Sasuke is paying over the register.

Sasuke stops and blinks twice.

"It's so hard finding someone nice these days," the shopkeeper continues, who is male and wiggling his eyebrows and well _above_ his forties.

Sasuke proceeds to splutter in an out of character, awkward, disjointed and unconvincing manner before managing to say as firmly as he can. "No. _No_, he's _not_ my boyfriend."

"I'm not judging," the shopkeeper replies, unconvinced. "Merry Christmas!"

Sasuke finishes paying up, slightly disturbed.

When the two are outside, Sasuke prevents Naruto from placing a scarf around his neck.

Xxx

More and more, Sasuke begins to feel as if Naruto and he have been pushed into an unforgiving reality TV show where they are both suddenly forced into the position berkless housewives. That is:

A day before Christmas Eve, Sasuke finds himself in the uncompromising position of two hands deep up the ass of a turkey and Naruto doing a fine imitation of an angry sports far by yelling incoherently that what Sasuke is doing is wrong.

"You're not putting the stuffing in properly!"

"I will stick your head in as stuffing if you don't shut up, usuratonkachi."

Two hours and an expensive shirt later, Naruto is wearing oven mittens and a pink apron that is now an odd green colour, reading off the back of a cookie mix with his tongue comically sticking out.

"It says here we need to melt the chocolate."

"Why would we need to melt the chocolate?"

"Because the pack says so."

"But we're not making chocolate cookies. We're making chocolate_ chip_ cookies."

Naruto throws the box onto Sasuke's head.

Sasuke throws an egg square into his face.

They decide to give up on making cookie and focus on baking a pie. The turkey is in the oven, roasting and falling apart at 200 degrees and Sasuke's been keeping watch on how long it's been inside.

Half way through making the pie they realise they've completely forgotten to buy the blueberries.

"I thought that was your job!" Naruto accused.

"My job," Sasuke hisses through clenched teeth. "Was to get the ingredients for the main."

"Pie isn't main?"

"Pie is pastry!" Sasuke yells.

So Naruto is sent out to buy some blueberries and Sasuke is left with the now burnt, green, used to be pink apron, trying to figure out what the measurement of a teaspoon is and how that is any different to a tablespoon and if, really, people needed spoons for their tea.

He slaps himself over the face and leaves flour in the shape of a palm on his forehead when realises soon after that he has left Naruto unsupervised, in a supermarket, with his credit card.

Naruto returns with a bag of blueberries that are the colour red.

"These are cherries," Sasuke deadpans.

"They ran out of blueberries!" Naruto exclaims.

"I don't know how to make a cherry pie, Naruto," Sasuke grits out.

"But you're Sasuke! You can do everything!"

Sasuke wants to kill himself.

Naruto leans over to see past Sasuke's shoulder.

"…Why is there smoke coming from the oven?"

Sasuke turns. "Fuck."

He runs to the next room for the extinguisher.

Xxx

It's a small fire, with no real loss besides Sasuke's kitchen curtains and two hours worth of work on a failing turkey. Sasuke's face is covered in soot and the back bit of his hair is singed.

The two, overworked and slightly distraught, sit listlessly on the couch.

"You are useless," Sasuke feels the need to say and Naruto can only agree.

Itachi walks in later with a ten restaurant brochures in his hand.

Xxx

On Christmas Eve, before Lunch, Naruto drags Sasuke out onto an ice rink.

Naruto, for the first time in six days, had gone back to his apartment the night before in order to find the cooking utensil kit his aunt Tsunade had given him and instead brought back two pairs of skate shoes.

"They were just lying in the basement," he had insisted.

Against all rationality, that is, willingly following Naruto's idea, Sasuke decides, in a fit of what Naruto calls festival fever, to comply with Naruto's insistence and the two head off to the ice rink.

The thing about Naruto that Sasuke had learnt quite early in their initially reluctant relationship is that he always has amazing unexpected skills up his sleeve, such as managing to achieve straight Fs during middle school and jumping off a roof with a papermache parachute and being left with only a fractured wrist.

So it is not as much of a surprise as it could have been that Naruto is actually not a complete fool on the ice.

"My uncle taught me how to skate," Naruto shouts already one hundred meters away from solid land, in other words, Sasuke.

Sasuke slowly stands up and balances rather pathetically on the slippery ice.

Naruto glides closer. "Do you want help?"

"No," Sasuke declares and Naruto grins.

If there's something that is to be known about the two of them, it is that the neither of them like to be one-upped by the other. Sasuke is sure, no, positive, that Naruto is revelling in this current situation.

"Are you sure?"

Sasuke does not reply and takes a baby step forward, nearly trips, flails for a while before managing to get his balance. "Yes," he snaps.

For the next hour Naruto skates around the rink as if it were taught to him before walking as a child. Sasuke makes miniscule progress and for some reasons begins to be reminded strongly of the scene with bambi's first steps.

He ends up falling seventeen times before Naruto intervenes and catches him on the eighteenth. Sasuke huffs, ignores that weird fuzzy feeling he is gets, which is probably repressed bloodlust.

"Does it make me a bad person if I say I'm enjoying this?" Naruto asks.

Sasuke punches him in the face, which is a bad move, because they both end up falling, hard, onto the ice. The whole way through, Naruto does not stop laughing.

"This activity is ridiculous," Sasuke states.

"No, you just suck at it," Naruto replies happily, gathering energy from the hatred it is inspiring within Sasuke. "Here I'll help you up."

Naruto offers his hand, but Sasuke, being too full of pride, as he always is, rejects it.

He ends up slipping and falling on his face again. He growls and wonders what the hell made him ever agree on going ice skating with Naruto in the first place, when he could be back at home, instead, kicking the shit out of Naruto in a video games or just kicking the shit out of Naruto period.

Naruto reoffers his hand. This time Sasuke takes it, and slips, quite close, too close, into Naruto's arms.

If this was a movie, there'd be heavily sweeping romantic music.

But it's not, so when Naruto grins idiotically Sasuke punches him in the face, again, this time unremorsefully, watches the blond trip over his own feet before saying: "I'll master this in two days."

He then proves this by falling onto his face.

Xxx

By the time they reach the house Sakura and Kiba have already arrived and sit quite comfortably on the stools by Sasuke's kitchen bench, which is an odd sentence to construct because Sasuke rarely has company over besides Naruto, who is more of an intruder than he is company.

"What happened to you guys?" Sakura asks with raised eyebrows.

It's a fair question seeing as the two of them are in a very poor and wet state. Naruto's face is sweaty, red and covered in dirt, which probably is reflected similarly on Sasuke's face. They're both supporting each other by the shoulders and have scuffs on basically everywhere that can be scuffed.

"Sasuke and skating happened," Naruto replies and Sasuke groans.

"Naruto tried to jump and twirl, didn't he?" Kiba whispers to Sasuke, who does not reply because the back of his mind is coming up with: 'and I did too'.

He mumbles something like: 'I'm going to change' and makes his way up the stairs .By the time he reaches his room he hears a bunch of new voices and Naruto's especially excited one downstairs.

This is where Sasuke cannot help but grin to himself.

"Naruto sure is entertaining isn't he?"

Sasuke flinches and turns around. Itachi is leaning against his doorframe with the usual secretive smile just barely tinging his lips.

Itachi continues. "Christmas time gets pretty hectic because he's around, but then again, all year round is when he shows up."

Sasuke shrugs. "I guess."

"We should invite him to stay for Christmas."

Sasuke answers slowly. "Why?"

"Because by now, I consider him family."

There is an awkward pause between the two of them.

Sasuke knows he is fairly close to his brother, but it's not the chummy we're-best-friends sort of close, but rather this weird mutual respect sort of closeness, where it's silently understood that they'd both kill without regret to ensure the others safety. It is how his family works, and how he understands it to work; a tight-knit uncommunicative bond most people cannot understand.

Well, maybe, except for Naruto.

Itachi leaves his door.

By the time Sasuke reaches the living room the table in the dining room has been set with a rather good looking meal that he and Naruto did not make but are taking credit for. It is surrounded by what Naruto likes to call: 'the gang' because there are too many people (_Sakura, Shikamaru,__Chōji,__Ino, Hinata,__Kiba, Shino, Lee, Neji, TenTen) _for Sasuke to bother listing off. They have already started eating and are chatting amicably.

Behind him Naruto slaps him back and beams when Sasuke turns around.

"Best thing about Christmas," he says.

He leaps to the other side of the table and rapidly begins a fight with Kiba who is hogging all the turkey. The girls giggle and Sakura makes a snide yet affectionate comment on Naruto's need to revaluate his weight. Itachi emerges from the kitchen with a carving knife and asks for some quiet. The table instantly shuts up because Itachi has always resembled a psychopath and having a knife in his hand only aids to the description. Naruto takes the knife from Itachi and insists on cutting.

"No," Itachi remarks, looks up. "That should be Sasuke's job."

Sasuke snaps back to reality.

Itachi signals at the knife in Naruto's hand.

There is a pause.

And then:

"No way, why does _he_ get to cut?"

And only Naruto can say something like that and somehow manage to complete everything for Sasuke. Make it right.

A fight will descend, no doubt, which will be unsafe with cooking utensil being the cause, but it's okay because on Sasuke's side is both the cranberry sauce and the mashed potato.

He will make some sort of a snide retort, ignore the apprehensive look on everyone's faces and watch Naruto turn a million colours in the span of a few seconds while he thinks to himself over and over:

_Yes, just like family. _

_Xxx_

Lunch turns to afternoon tea, which turns to: 'hey, you know what would be fun? Watching Sasuke suck ass at skating.'

By the time they are all bruised and sore, they decide to call it a day. Sasuke improves, just barely, but still improves.

It is blistering cold outside, with the snow deciding to torrent down at nightfall. Naruto turns on the fireplace Sasuke has been trying to get working for years. Sasuke pulls two barker chairs up to the fire. Settling comfortably in one of them, Sasuke revels in the warmth before him, quietly accepts the hot chocolate he did not order from Naruto and watches the clock slowly tick its way to twelve.

Just for this moment, he will turn with an unknowing smile on his face, admire the red of the flames softly reflecting against Naruto's cheek and, against all cliché avoiding senses, whisper the words:

"Merry Christmas, Naruto."


End file.
